Surprisingly, it wasn't as awkward as Riley expected. Or maybe he had simply been bracing for more resistance.
If he was being honest, it was likely just the product of his imagination, since he and his father hadn't exactly been on tight speaking terms for the past five years.
Sure, they spoke when necessary. He still greeted him as a son greeting an elder should. But it wasn't like before.
Not like when he used to chatter endlessly about the worm he found in the garden that morning or the fights that broke out at school.
Back then, they had been close. His father had been his ally when the time came to choose his career. But then, one day, Lawrence Hale was just… different. Distant. Gone somewhere Riley couldn't follow, and the father he grew up with seemed like a completely different man from the one who had been with them these last five years.
Then again, the man hadn't been sick five years ago.
